Seminar November 2019 - Athens

On the first day, the seminar started with Wouter Van Looy, Artistic Director of Zonzo Compagnie, who talked about the ideas behind the BIG BANG project and about challenges and traps in creating and programming music projects for children.

The next talk was by the Sonoscopia Group. Ana Luisa Veloso and Gustavo Costa talked about the history, the mission and values of Sonoscopia. Then they presented main projects in educational contexts and explained how and why these projects were created. In the last part of the presentation, they shared rearch findings based on a) what motivates, challenges and engages children when they interact with sounds and music, and b) thinking of the bridges that can be established between the work developed by artists, in non-formal and informal contexts, and the work carried out by teachers and educators, in their daily school activities.

In the last talk, Eleni Efthymiou talked about how she transforms music into a dramaturgy tool though examples from her works. Expressing her interest in new music theatre narrations and forms, she shared her inspirations proposed ways of making music using only the human voice, without musical instruments or with musical instruments played in unconventional ways. 

The second part of the seminar included two workshops that took place parallely. The first workshop was by Eleni Efthmyiou. During the workshop, the participants explored the different ways in which a given text turns into a music score. Through exercises based on structured improvisation, the participants engaged in music experiments and composed a music score presenting their own point of view on the given text.  

The second workshop was led by Sonoscopia. The participants focused on listening the intrinsic qualities of the sounds around us, regardless of their importance and magnitude. The participants had the opportunity to use everyday objects in order to produce different sounds.

The second day of the seminar started with the talk of Brian Irvine, who talked about different projects that he has realised in schools abroad. He described how it was to work with a big group of young children and how he was able motivate them to express themselfes through music.

The second talk was given by GNOUS. Starting from the shows “Scratch Bam” and “Turntable Project”, presented in previous Big Bang Festivals, the talk focused on the key points of an interactive show for children, as well as the ways to develop an original idea into an integrated educational experience. 

In the second part of the seminar, the workshop of Brian Irvine was about connecting young people with the joyful act of composing. Brian Irvine discussed an approach to music making that connects children to the sheer joyfulness of composing. 

The workshop by GNOUS explored different versions of the coexistence between music and moving image. Through experiments, discussions, recordings and, in the end, abstractions, participants experienced the creative process of finding balance between the artistic and the educational character of the said play.